This Month's Top Stories . . .
Men's Hoop Cats to Host America East Title Game, Women Advance to Semifinals (up^) The UVM men's basketball Catamounts defeated the Binghamton Bearcats 76-65 last weekend to advance to the America East Men's Basketball Championship title game for the third straight season. The top-seeded Catamounts (23-6) will host the conference final for the second consecutive year and take on second seed Northeastern (21-8), Saturday, March 12, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time at Patrick Gym. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN. Sunday's win over fifth-seeded Binghamton was UVM's 23rd of the season, setting a new school record for victories. It also was coach Tom Brennan's 262nd at Vermont as he surpassed John "Fuzzy" Evans as the school's all-time leader in coaching wins. The two-time defending America East champion Catamounts are making their fourth appearance in the conference title game. They lost to Boston University in 1990, won at B.U. in 2003, and topped Maine last season at Patrick Gym. Additional broadcast information at http://www.uvm.edu/athletics/mens_basketball/. Meanwhile, the UVM women's basketball team set a new America East Tournament record by shooting 63.3% from the floor and advanced to the semifinals of the America East Women's Basketball Championship as the #4-seeded Catamounts defeated #5 Binghamton, 80-65, at the University of Hartford. The Catamounts will take on the winner of #1 Maine vs. #8 Boston U at 6:00 pm Friday, March 11. Broadcast information at http://www.uvm.edu/athletics/womens_basketball/?Page=News&storyID=6093. Blue-Ribbon Panel -- "In Search of Civic Heroes" (up^) "Politics and the Public Trust: In Search of the Next Generation of Civic Heroes" is the theme of a panel discussion featuring prominent figures in the public eye to take place at UVM's Ira Allen Chapel on Monday, March 14, at 4 p.m.. The moderator will be Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Research. Panelists will include: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attorney, author, and environmental activist; Adam Clymer, long-time Washington correspondent for the New York Times and currently visiting scholar at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania; U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Madeleine May Kunin, former Vermont Governor, Ambassador to Switzerland, and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education, and currently distinguished visiting professor at the University of Vermont and St. Michael's College; and Frank Bryan, UVM political science professor. The event is the first in what will be an annual series of public events celebrating the life of the late Charlie Ross, one of the most influential and well respected Vermont public servants of his generation. The event is free and open to the public. Read more at http://www.uvm.edu/news/?Page=News&storyID=6076. UVM Applications At Record Level (up^) Applications to the University of Vermont have reached a record level of 12,889 in 2005, approximately 13 percent higher than a year ago and surpassing the previous record of 11,953 set in 1987. Applications have increased by 80.9 percent since 1997 and by 63.4 percent since 2000. The quality of the applicant pool is also up, with average SAT scores rising an average of approximately 15 points. Diversity in the applicant pool also increased this year, with a 10 percent rise in the number of applicants identifying themselves African American, Asian American, Latino, or Native American. "We are very pleased with both the size and quality of the applicant pool," said Don Honeman, director of admissions and financial aid. "It's more evidence that the word is getting out about the quality of the academic experience UVM offers." Read more at http://www.uvm.edu/news/?Page=News&storyID=5927. Debate Teams Win Two National Titles (up^) UVM's Lawrence Debate Union won two national championships in a single weekend, taking the novice and junior varsity debate titles at the Georgetown University tournament, which ended on March 7. "We knew who we had to beat, and we aggressively prepared to beat them," says Professor Alfred Snider, director of the debate program. The team's performance increased its rankings in the national debate sweepstakes from number 17 to number five, behind Berkeley, Harvard, Liberty and Emory. The varsity team competes in the Cross Examination Debate Association's National Championship Tournament starting March 18. New Major in Film and Television Studies (up^) A new major in film and television studies will be offered by UVM's Department of English beginning next year in response to student demand and faculty interest. The program will extend and replace the department's existing film minor. "Film and television are hugely important in our culture, and we see it as the mission of English studies to focus on all kinds of texts," says Robyn Warhol, professor and chair of English, who says the new major will build on the work of Frank Manchel, a popular professor emeritus of film. Read more at http://www.uvm.edu/news/?Page=News&storyID=6020. Study Finds Chemotherapy Benefits Older and Younger Women Equally (up^) Roughly 50 percent of new breast cancers in the United States occur in women aged 65 or older. But doctors are sometimes reluctant to offer strong chemotherapy to older patients for a variety of reasons. Dr. Hyman Muss, professor of medicine at the UVM College of Medicine, wants that to change. In a recent Journal of the American Medical Association article, Muss analyzed the results of four major clinical studies on chemotherapy treatment in older versus younger women with breast cancer. He found that healthy older women who underwent the stronger chemotherapy derived the same benefits as the younger women. Full story at http://www.uvm.edu/theview/article.php?id=1558. Freeman Gift Addresses Pressing Need for Nursing Faculty (up^) With heightened awareness of a nationwide nursing shortage, applications to nursing schools have increased dramatically. But now, all five of Vermont's nursing schools are faced with the unthinkable -- turning away qualified applicants. The reason: not enough faculty members. Vermont's Freeman Foundation is again taking the lead in addressing a nursing need with a $1.5 million gift to help develop more nursing faculty. "We can't do more to solve this nurse shortage until the faculty shortage is addressed," says Toni Kaeding, research associate in nursing and coordinator of the Freeman Nurse Scholars program. "It is ironic that we have worked so hard to attract strong candidates to a nursing career and now are turning them away at the door." Read more at http://www.uvm.edu/theview/article.php?id=1560. Lonergan Named Men's Basketball Coach (up^) Mike Lonergan, an assistant coach at the University of Maryland who led Catholic University to the 2001 NCAA Division III national championship, has been named head coach of UVM men's basketball. Lonergan, 39, who also spent three years as an assistant coach at Colgate, will succeed Tom Brennan, who is finishing up a 19-year run as head coach at Vermont. Prior to joining the Maryland staff in April of 2004, Lonergan led Catholic University to seven consecutive NCAA Division III Tournament appearances and nine overall from 1992 to 2004. He is the only coach in the country in any division to have won the regular-season conference championship each of the seven-year span from 1998 to 2004. Read more at http://www.uvm.edu/theview/article.php?id=1541. Men's Hockey to Face Dartmouth in Playoff Series (up^) Coach Kevin Sneddon¹s Vermont men's hockey team enjoyed a week off from competition last week, but is gearing up this week for a 2005 ECAC Men¹s Hockey League Championship quarterfinal series with Dartmouth this weekend at Gutterson Fieldhouse. The series is best two-of-three with games slated Catamounts in Second Place at NCAA Ski Championship (up^) The University of Vermont was in second place behind Denver University with 348 points heading into Friday's slalom races in the 2005 NCAA Ski Championship in Stowe. This is the fifth time in the last 25 years that Vermont has hosted the premier championship in collegiate skiing. The event wraps up on Saturday, March 12. For the latest results, go to http://www.uvm.edu/athletics/skiing/. Campus Kudos (up^) A paper by Bruce Beynnon, associate professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation, has earned the 2005 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine O'Donoghue Sports Injury Research Award, given to the best overall paper dealing with clinical research or human in-vivo research. The paper is co-authored by Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation faculty including: Dr. Joseph Abate, Dr. Bjarne Brattbakk, Dr. Robert Johnson, and Dr. Claude Nichols. Donald Honeman, associate vice president for enrollment, planning and admissions, has been named to the Board of Trustees of the College Board's New England Regional Assembly. Wolfgang Mieder, professor and chair of German and Russian, co-authored an article on "The Proverb `Good Fences Make Good Neighbors' in Ireland," which appeared in the British journal Folklore. Mieder also published the paper "Zur Dialektik der Sprichwörter in den Aphorismen von Hans Kudszus" in an essay volume on Lexikalische Semantik, Phraseologie und Lexikographie published in Hungary. Dr. Polly Parsons, professor of medicine, was lead author of a January Critical Care Medicine article titled "Lower tidal volume ventilation and plasma cytokine markers of inflammation in patients with acute lung injury." A July 2004 Cancer Research article, "Genotoxicity of therapeutic intervention in children with acute lymphocytic leukemia," has been selected to be abstracted in the 2005 Year Book of Oncology. Led by 2004 UVM College of Medicine doctoral degree recipient Sederick Rice, the study's senior author was Dr. Barry Finette, professor of pediatrics. Co-authors included Pamela Vacek, biostatistician in medical biostatistics and research assistant professor of pathology; Dr. Alan Homans, associate professor of pediatrics; Terri Messier, senior researcher in the Vermont Cancer Center; and Heather Kendall, a graduate student in the department of microbiology and molecular genetics. Article abstracts featured in the Year Book of Oncology, which is published by Elsevier, were selected from more than 500 journals worldwide that reported the year's breakthrough developments in oncology. David Scrase, professor of German and Russian, published "Building a Holocaust Studies Program for Both Town and Gown" in an essay volume on Teaching the Representation of the Holocaust. The article describes the creation and activities of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont of which Scrase is founder and long-time director, and notes that students can now earn a minor in Holocaust Studies. An article by James Sinkula, professor of business administration, has been recognized as one of the top five articles (based on a citation analysis) published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. The article, "The Synergistic Effect of Market Orientation and Learning Orientation on Organizational Performance," was written with William Baker of San Diego State University and published in 1999. Dr. Burton Sobel, professor and chair of medicine, was elected a fellow of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences in recognition of his outstanding achievements in cardiovascular research and education. Jill Mattuck Tarule, dean of the College of Education and Social Services, received the Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teacher Education at the 57th annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education in Washington, D.C. Burton Wilcke, associate professor and chair of biomedical technology, was invited by the Institute of Medicine to serve on a committee to evaluate the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief. |